Obama's single shining accomplishment....

it's pretty obvious if you actually look at how voting has gone that it's been the right, and their strategy of attempting to prevent anything from happening and blaming obama for it---that's responsible for much of the paralysis that's been the american response to the crisis created the kind of capitalism advocated by the right. what's happening is their ability to maintain traction in their ideological message has come apart. the media context has shifted. i think the shift cuts across the older us system of opinion management, though, and that the occupation movement is a primary indication of that. so it's also not the case--as if it ever was, but conservatives like to pretend reality is otherwise---that there's any symmetry between conservative media and any other us media apparatus. i see the Problem that the right is about to run into is already evident in the evaporation of its ability to frame political issues. it'd be even more apparently were obama not a centrist. but he is.
--- merged: Jan 2, 2012 9:58 PM ---
aside---i wanted to take out a sentence for clarity--the one what starts "so it's also not the case" but for some reason the platform wouldn't let me do it. sorry about the confusion it introduces.

 

I don't disagree about what the Republican message is - but this thread is about Obama. And true to form, in the Obama tradition, we oh so easily go from talking about Obama to talking about those rascally Republicans. So, in the context of the thread what is your point? Is Obama's message effective or ineffective? Are Republicans both controlling the political agenda in Washington and the message? Am I wrong about Obama's message being an accomplishment and in my view his most shining accomplishment?

 

ace, dear, it's pretty simple. the republicans have chosen a strategy and they're consistent with it. i see it as an absurd, scorched earth strategy. it's nonsensical to pretend that one can separate a president's tactical choices from the situation he (or she, someday) faces in congress. so try again if you "idea" is to separate what obama has been able to accomplish from the consistent obstruction of the right. the sorry (for all of us) fact is that the republicans have decided that this set of outcomes suits them. i think it's about to blow up in your face. because there's no logical way to make the separation that this sad, conservative generated thread would make.

 

Let's stipulate the above. And let's further assume the singular goal of the Republican Party establishment is to make Obama a one term President. Obama's response is what? Is it working? In my view, if you look at it in these terms or in terms of simply looking at the current status of our economy, debt and other domestic issues - the fact that Obama beats generic and every Republican candidate head to head in polls is an amazing accomplishment. That is my only point for this thread.

 

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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/01/santorum-and-the-republicans.html